Cascade Smart Home and Dianemo both have integrated support for external Satellite/Cable STB's and their EPG data. Below I describe some of the capabilities you can expect when controlling an external STB...when I use a Sky or Virgin STB in an example you can read that to mean that the feature would be available for any other STB too.

In the UK the dominant providers are Sky & Virgin Media and STB's from both companies are supported. The STB is added as a Tuner/Source to MythTV and SkyPlayer or VirginPlayer devices are added and a SkyHD or Virgin device is added as child of the installed blaster (see attached screen shot).

Your Cascade/Dianemo NerveCentre automatically updates it EPG data for the attached STB's from one of our servers each day. So even if your NerveCentre only has Freeview Tuners the attached STB's EPG data is integrated into the MythTV EPG alongside your Freeview channels. Freeview's Logical Channel numbering is used so that channels are correctly numbered and familiar (ie for Freeview BBC1 for example is on '1' and Five is on '5' and if you have Freesat they would be on '101' and '105'). To allow for each external STB to be integrated into the EPG Cascade/Dianemo allocates Channel number ranges to each of them on the following basis;

External STB No.1 - (Its a Sky HD box) would have its channels run from '1101' & upwards.External STB No.2 - (Its a Sky+ Box) would have its channels run from '2101' & upwards.External STB No.3 - (Its a Virgin box) would have its channels run from '3101' & upwards.External STB No.4 - (Its 'Some other STB' box) would have its channels run from '4101' & upwards.

See the attached MythWeb screen shot (attached to the next post as it was too big to attach here) of a Freesat based Dianemo system with one SkyHD external STB - notice the channels starting at '1101' these are the Sky channels from the Sky Box.

So whatever external STB you have as long as there is EPG data available for it Dianemo/Cascade will integrate it into the MythTV EPG. To make a recording of a TV show on any attached STB you would just browse to that channel in the LiveTV Guide (or use MythWeb to do the same) and press 'Record' - thats it. It works just the same way it would for a Freeview/Freesat channel. MythTV will then automatically select the correct channel on the external STB at the appropriate time and will record the TV show to your Media Library.

Another capability of Cascade/Dianemo is that it allows you to remotely control the external STB in a number of exciting ways. For example you might have a Media Manager (MM = Media Director in LinuxMCE) in your upstairs bedroom while your NerveCentre is located under your TV in the Lounge or possibly in a Rack in your Garage. You want to watch a Live TV Show from your Sky box (or any external STB) in the bedroom so you go to LiveTV and use the Guide to browse to the Sky channel the show is on and press 'OK'...Cascade sends a command to the Sky box to select that channel and after a couple of seconds your watching the LIveTV stream from the Sky box in your bedroom...after a while your feeling a bit sleepy so you decide to record the show and go to sleep...you just press the 'Record' button on the remote and the show is added to your Media Library. Alternatively you might have some TV shows recorded on your STB's internal hard drive...for example a Sky+ or SkyHD box...that you would like to watch from the bedroom...you just go to LiveTV from your MM's main menu and choose a Sky+ channel...then just press the 'LiveTV' button again on your remote to toggle on 'Live Control Mode' of the Sky+ box...in this mode all your IR remote commands are sent direct to the Sky+ box, converting your Dianemo remote into a Sky remote. Now just go to the Sky planner and choose the recording you want to watch and press 'OK'...now your watching the Sky+ recording as Cascade/Dianemo streams it across the LAN to you...you can 'Pause' it, 'Rewind' it...do anything you would do from the actual Sky Remote in fact.

Hope the above begins to help you understand whats possible...and thats just a tiny glimpse of whats possible with external STB's in Dianemo/Cascade :-)

Adding new STB's (ie one we have not pre-configured for) to Dianemo/Cascade is simple. Its just a matter of adding the IR codes for its remote control and adding its channel lineup to MythTV. You get access to all of the STB features that I have previously described and the Dianemo/Cascade remote provides full access to any features the specific STB supports.

If you have specific STB related questions or have a more general question related to adding STB's please get in contact.

NC120 UnderTv NerveCentres - We're offering a limited stock of these in brushed metal finish at £999 + VAT which is a 25% discount over SRP. The units have 2.8Ghz processor, 2gig of RAM, 1Tb SATA hard drives, Optical DVD-RW, 2 x DVB-T tuners. These are are great UnderTv NerveCenters and are perfect for smaller homes or where you plan to add a NAS to expand storage capacity.

All these units have Cascade installed and ready to go and come with our standard 12 month 'return to base' warranty & after sales support and come complete with an upgrade to our Ubuntu 9.10 included in the price (you will be notified when this becomes available).

The Enhanced AVwizard that is part of Cascade/Dianemo makes it easy for you to add your own nVidia based Media Managers (Revos, ASUS 1501's or home built Zotac Ion based machines).

The enhanced AVwizard that ships with every Cascade/Dianemo system allows you to manage additional output connectors that are available on some of our NerveCentre models and also do the same on some newer nVidia based Media Managers you might add to your system. For example many of the new Ion based motherboards and pre-built MM's use HDMI/DVI 2 as their primary HDMI output connector. Using the Enhanced AVwizard makes handling this for your MM's a simple task - the numbers or letters at the beginning of each line below indicate the key you should press on the keyboard to choose a particular Output Connector;

Similarly the Enhanced AVwizard has an 'HDMI' option when selecting how to output the video/audio signals selecting this and then choosing Dolby Digital & DTS for example would route SPDIF output to the HDMI connector on your MD...rejecting these would output Stereo instead.

These are just a few a of the capabilities of the Enhanced AVwizard shipping with you Dianemo system.

Do you only sell the software to?I would love to see that you guys did. Chris

Hi Chris,

Currently we do not have a software only offering. We sell Cascade as a 'self install' range of Hybrid & stand-alone NerveCentre's (ie Core's) which come pre-loaded with Cascade which you can then add your own Media Managers (Media Directors) and other peripherals to. Bundled with each NerveCentre we provide a remote assistance service and you also receive regular software Updates from our Update servers (we have just released Update-14). Updates contain enhancements and/or bug fixes. Your NerveCentre automatically checks in with our Update servers once a day and any updates are downloaded. You will then receive an Update alert on your Orbiter screens.

Will the device driver be coming back to the main LinuxMCE trunk as well or will this only be for Dianemo systems?

The current support does not need a new device driver but in the future it might may do. Our policy on this is to roll this support out in Cascade/Dianemo and then quickly pass the code back to LinuxMCE. Usually this means there is at worst a few weeks 'lag' between the two.

The only area where we dont follow this rule is with our UI changes which are Cascade/Dianemo specific and either make no sense to LinuxMCE or in some cases are not in-line with the direction that the LinuxMCE Devs are taking etc.

We have just added support for the Denon AVR-2310 Surround Receiver to Cascade/Dianemo. Full independent control of both the 7.1 & secondary Stereo Zones for Source input selection, Standby on/off, Mute, volume level is provided. The 2310 is great 7.1 Receiver with a 2nd Stereo zone, 5 HDMI inputs and full 1080P switching support;